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The Golden Tractate of Hermes Trismegistus #9




 

SECTION III.

Know my Son, that the philosophers bind up their matter with a strong chain, that it may contend with the Fire; because the spirits in the washed bodies desire to dwell therein and to rejoice. In these habitations they verify themselves and inhabit there, and the bodies hold them, nor can they be thereafter separated any more.
The dead elements are revived, the composed bodies tinge and are altered, and by a wonderful process they are made permanent, as saith the philosopher.
O, permanent watery Form, creatrix of the royal elements; who, having with thy brethren and a just government obtained the tincture, findest rest. Our most precious stone is cast forth upon the dunghill, and that which is most worthy is made vilest of the vile. Therefore, it behoves us to mortify two Argent vives together, both to venerate and be venerated, viz., the Argent vive of Auripigment, and the oriental Argent vive of Magnesia
O, Nature, the most potent creatrix of Nature, which containest and separatest natures in a middle principle. The Stone comes with light, and with light it is generated, and then it generates and brings forth the black clouds or darkness, which is the mother of all things.
But when we marry the crowned King to our red daughter, and in a gentle fire, not hurtful, she doth conceive an excellent and supernatural son, which permanent life she doth also feed with a subtle heat, so that he lives at length in our fire.
But when thou shalt send forth thy fire upon the foliated sulphur, the boundary of hearts doth enter in above, it is washed in the same, and the purified matter thereof is extracted.
Then is he transformed, and his tincture by help of the fire remains red, as it were flesh. But our Son, the king begotten, takes his tincture from the fire, and death even, and darkness, and the waters flee away.
The Dragon shuns the sunbeams which dart through the crevices, and our dead son lives; king comes forth from the fire and rejoins with his spouse, the occult treasures are laid open, and the virgin's milk is whitened. The Son, already vivified is become a warrior in the fire and of tincture super-excellent. For this Son is himself the treasury, even himself bearing the Philosophic Matter.
Approach, ye Sons of Wisdom, and rejoice; let us now rejoice together, for the reign of death is finished, and the Son doth rule. And now he is invested with the red garment, and the scarlet colour is put on.


It happen'd that a great number of them being invited to a Feast where Kisna was also present, they were so full of wantonness, as to stamp upon the precious Flowers call'd Majstou and CafsoMa (affording a most delicious Tincture for «»»ng) with their Feet. Not contented thus, it being a Moonlhiny Night, they contrived to ridicule the famous Prophet Ruehi, whom they saw sitting very thoughtfully under a Tree. For this purpose they put a Basket under a certain Man's Clothes, dresi'd like a Woman, and carrying her to Aucbi, ask'd him, whether this Woman was to bring forth a Male or Female Child? He not minding them the first time, they pulPd him by the Arm j and ask'd him the fame Question in a very rude manner a second time j when being as.it Wereawaken'd out of his Pensivehcfs, he told them, he sltould bring forth an Iron Bar which should break all their Skulls. He had no sooner said these words, but the difguis'd man was aeized with most intolerable Pains, which did not cease till he had brought forth an Iron Bat. Being amaz'd at so odd an Accident, they had recourse to Kisna, who ordered them to go to the Village of Perwatspatang, seated upon the River, where they should find a Stone; wherewith they must rub the Iron Bar till it was redue'd to Pouder, and then throw it into the RlvCr. They did as they were ordered, but no sooner had they thrown the Pouder of the Iron into the Water, but the whole River was fill'd with Reeds or small Canes, as if it had been a Forest: They gave an account of it to Kisna,who told them it was well.
It happen'd upon another Festival, that the young Tribe beirig merry together, one of the Company took up one of these Reeds from the ground, and striking another over the Head in jest, he taw him drop down dead before his Feeti The Friends of the deceased raking up another such Reed, struck the other young Fellow eves trie Head, who like-


The scientific or philosophic matter is an imaginary homogeneous substance which is none of the real kinds of matter, but is the hypothetical substance of which the real things are supposed to be variations. What, then, is the homogeneous matter of science? The scient does not know ; he has no definition of it: it may be atoms; it may be vortex-rings in ether; it may be mathematical points acting as centres of force. In fact there are two ways of regarding matter: matter is nothing, or matter is something unknown. Matter = o, or matter = .r. Either of these may be true; and the supposition of either demolishes materialism. There is no third alternative. Now for a philosophy the unifying principle must be real, and must be intelligible. If it is not real, if there is no such thing, then the philosophy collapses: it is wholly a delusion. If it is real, but quite unknown, a mere x, the unknown cannot serve as a connecting principle by which our human minds can in thought unite things together. A philosophy is a sort of explanation; a way, at least, of conceiving the world. To say that the world is x and terms of x, leaves us just where we were before—in the presence of an unsolved problem.

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